Can Julian Assange be extradited to the US, assuming he is caught? Roger Alford takes a look and thinks it will be tricky.
I personally think it will be a really interesting case when the political offense exception gets invoked. This is something I wrote about fairly extensively in my book.
It seems to me that Assange'as acts are going to trigger a discussion about whether they can be seen as "purely political" offenses or simply political offenses compounded by other crimes. The final decision makes an enormous difference.
This (un)helpfully, but more interestingly, in turn produces a series of political decisions masquerading at times as judicial decisions. This should be fascinating to watch, in other words. (The fact that Assange is claiming to be prepared to release some really juicy stuff (or a "poison pill") if he gets pinched is additionally intriguing)
I do wonder why Assange chose to got to England to hide rather than, say a country that has no extradition treaty with the US like Afghanistan. There must be a place or two to hide there.
Yessir, there are all sorts of reasons to go hide out in extradition-free Afghanistan, starting with the fact that the US inability to find wanted fugitives there is, uh, something of a major policy issue.
I personally think it will be a really interesting case when the political offense exception gets invoked. This is something I wrote about fairly extensively in my book.
It seems to me that Assange'as acts are going to trigger a discussion about whether they can be seen as "purely political" offenses or simply political offenses compounded by other crimes. The final decision makes an enormous difference.
This (un)helpfully, but more interestingly, in turn produces a series of political decisions masquerading at times as judicial decisions. This should be fascinating to watch, in other words. (The fact that Assange is claiming to be prepared to release some really juicy stuff (or a "poison pill") if he gets pinched is additionally intriguing)
I do wonder why Assange chose to got to England to hide rather than, say a country that has no extradition treaty with the US like Afghanistan. There must be a place or two to hide there.
Yessir, there are all sorts of reasons to go hide out in extradition-free Afghanistan, starting with the fact that the US inability to find wanted fugitives there is, uh, something of a major policy issue.
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